Islam OnlineStrongly Islamist, generally supports the government of Sudan. Know the other side..

Al-Ahram WeeklyFrom the editor: "providing as honest and objective a look at contemporary Egyptian and Arab reality as possible -- as seen through Egyptian and Arab eyes."

Sudan - News and Analysis by Eric ReevesBy far the best independent analysis of the developing situation--and usually much more pessimistic than official accounts. Also usually proves to be more accurate.

The Passion of the Present (the essay)

-

In Darfur, a region in western Sudan approximately the size of Texas, over a million people are threatened with torture and death at the hands of marauding militia and a complicit government. Genocide evokes not only the moral, but also, the legal responsibility of the world community. Under international agreement, a nation must intervene to stop a genocide when it is officially acknowledged.

"Officially" is the key word here. So far, no nation in the international community has "officially" acknowledged the truth: Sudan is a bleeding ground of genocide. In this void, the Sudanese government continues to act with brutal impunity.

Thankfully, there are individuals working
in human rights organizations who are watching - and witnessing - and organizing, in support of the victims in Darfur. These individuals represent,
for all of us, a personal capacity to bear witness to the passion
of the present; one candle lit against the darkness.

However, before one can light a candle,
someone has to strike a match:
a donation to any of the human rights organizations active in Sudan, contacting your government representative, local newspaper, radio and t.v. station. Our individual activism is essential for the candlepower of witness to overcome and extinguish the firepower of genocide.

This world has long endured wars that take lives. Let us be part of one that saves them.

About: The Passion of the Present site is a totally non-profit labor of love and hope - in peace. Thanks for joining the effort.

About this blog

Our name comes from an essay entitled "The Passion of the Present" that one of our grassroots founders wrote and circulated by email in March of 2004. The blog started at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School.

The editors are semi-anonymous in order to keep the focus on Sudan. This site is a resource for a blog-based information community now numbering several hundred interlinked bloggers and sites. Visitors come from around the world. Daily traffic ranges from just under a thousand visitors, to more than eight thousand on days when news attention peaks.

Our technology cost for a public blog service, with no special discount, is still just $13.46 per month! Start a blog if you don't have one already!

The African Union (AU)/UN hybrid mission in Darfur (UNAMID), which is set to replace the AU's African Mission in Sudan (AMIS) has inaugurated its operational base in the town of El Fasher.

UNAMID, established by the Security Council in July 2007, will eventually comprise 19,555 military and 6,432 police personnel, making it one of the largest UN peacekeeping missions in history.

It is widely hoped that the hybrid force will be more effective in protecting civilians in Darfur than AMIS, which was made up of just 7,000 troops.

"Today [31 October] UNAMID marks its first day in its El Fasher Headquarters, completing preparations to assume operational command authority, as requested by the Security Council," Rodolphe Adada, UN-AU Joint Special Representative for Darfur said in a statement. "We have already completed the pre-handover preparations, involving deployment and movement of command elements and key staff to their designated offices, spaces, and installations throughout Darfur."

Officials from both the UN and [the] AU were already conducting pre-deployment visits to countries that have pledged to contribute soldiers, [in order] to inspect the troops and their equipment. The joint mission has not received adequate pledges for specialised units, such as air and land transport support, Adada said.

The headquarters opened three months to the day after the UN Security Council, on July 31, approved the new force of over 26,000 troops and police, baptised UNAMID, to replace the current under-equipped AU deployment of 7,000.

"This is a great day for UNAMID," Adada told journalists. "Three months ago, when the Security Council voted [on] Resolution 1769, it was an idea, and today we are a reality. Now we can begin the real work."

"We may be operational in the beginning of the next year," he said.

The United Nations said earlier this month [October] it had agreed with the African Union to accept troop contingents from 16 countries, mostly from Africa, but also from Bangladesh, Jordan, Nepal, the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, and Thailand.

Some troops have arrived already, but have been initially integrated into the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) while UNAMID is being set up.

The full force is not expected to be deployed until well into 2008.

"We are a step further toward the handover from AMIS to UNAMID," he said, adding that "[this] is the beginning of UNAMID."

"We are waiting for approval from the Sudanese government for infantry troops from two or three non-African countries," he said, repeating a UN appeal made earlier this month for more aircraft to patrol an area the size of France.

Asked about ongoing peace talks in the Libyan city of Sirte, attended by some rebels and Khartoum, but boycotted by the most-representative rebel factions, the Congolese politician said [that] "we need peace between Sudanese."

"There are two faces of the Darfur problem -- [the] establishing of UNAMID and the political issue. We need peace between Sudanese, because it will be the basis of our work."

Bush said on Tuesday that he had discussed the conflict with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and urged him to "get moving those troops into the Darfur region as quickly as possible."

The US president also stressed that "it's important to continue putting the pressure on the respective parties to come up with an agreement that will help end the genocide" in Darfur.

Conflict and famine in Darfur have left at least 200,000 people dead and two million displaced, according to international organisations, since Khartoum enlisted Janjaweed Arab militia allies to put down an ethnic-minority revolt in 2003.

A U.N. official inaugurated [on] Wednesday headquarters in Darfur for the joint U.N.-AU mission with a satellite-phone call to the United Nations in New York and the African Union seat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The move reflected a key administrative step toward merging U.N.'s peacekeeping efforts in the war-torn western Sudanese region with those of the overmatched African Union.

A formal takeover by the joint U.N.-AU force is due [on] Jan. 1.

"It is a great day for the United Nations and the African Union, the day of UNAMID's launch, which was only an idea, three months ago, but now it is a profound reality," said Rodolphe Adada, chief of the United Nations and African Union joint mission to Darfur, or UNAMID.

U.N. spokesman Ali Hamati told The Associated Press on the phone from Darfur that "this may look as a little step, but its [implications] are wide, it's a huge move toward the final assumption of full control in Darfur."

Hamati said [that] Adada made the first phone calls from the headquarters in El Fasher, North Darfur, and inspected its electronic and satellite equipment as some 150 people, including peacekeepers, [and] local and Khartoum officials attended.

In a press statement, Adada said [that] he has "all the confidence that the remaining steps toward the final assumption of authority by UNAMID will be concluded before the end of this year, so that we can start implementing our mandate in 2008 in full gear."

The joint U.N.-AU force in Darfur will comprise more than 19,000 military personnel, 6,000 police officers, and 5,500 civil personnel.

The joint force will replace a beleaguered 7,000-member AU force that has been unable to stop Darfur's bloodshed. Sudan agreed to the deployment of the joint force after months of international pressure and painstaking negotiations, which ended with a pledge that it would be predominantly African.

The Darfur conflict began when ethnic-African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed — a charge [that] it denies. More than 200,000 people have been killed in four years of violence.

At the El Fasher ceremony, Adada said [that] the joint mission still faces a "lack of pledges for specialized units in areas such as aviation and land transport" and also thanked the Sudanese government for making Wednesday's launch possible.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Darfur last month [September] to press for an end to the conflict, has warned that UNAMID faces "enormously complex" logistical challenges. And some observers are skeptical [that] such a large force will manage to deploy on time.

Darfur civilians have grown increasingly frustrated with the AU's lack of protection since it came in June 2004, and hope [that] the new, hybrid U.N.-AU force will better secure refugee camps and towns [in order] to bring back stability.

One of the main weaknesses of the AU's force is a mandate more focused on monitoring violence than preventing it. That weakness was underscored when a rebel attack in the Darfur village of Haskanita last month left 10 AU peacekeepers dead.

A joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force will begin operating in Darfur by early next year, the mission's political head said on Wednesday, as the force's new headquarters was inaugurated in western Sudan.

A 26,000-strong force will absorb a struggling AU mission of 7,000 troops which has failed to stem the violence in Sudan's remote west. Sudan accepted the much-larger joint mission after months of talks, threats, and negotiations.

"At the beginning of next year, we will begin to be operational," Rodolphe Adada told reporters in el-Fasher, where the U.N.-AU force will be headquartered.

He said [that] 4,000 members of a U.N. "heavy support" package would deploy [in order] to add to the AU troops on the ground.

But he said [that] they were still waiting for Sudan's approval of the list of troop-contributing countries for the force, as well as some aviation and other logistics which the United Nations had hoped [that] Western nations would provide.

"The only concern is about one or two non-African countries who have pledged some infantry troops," he said about why Khartoum had not yet approved the force composition.

Khartoum had insisted [that] the force be mostly African.

Adada was in el-Fasher on Wednesday to inaugurate the headquarters of the new force. Rows of dozens of empty pre-fabricated huts filled the site surrounded by desert in the outskirts of the town.

A lack of water and the provision of land pose a huge obstacle to the force deployment, issues which must be fully resolved before it can begin to protect millions of Darfuris dependent on the world's largest aid operation there.

The force, to be known as UNAMID, also has no ceasefire to monitor. Adada said [that] the old ceasefire commission monitoring an April 2004 truce would be suspended, as new talks have started in the Liyban town of Sirte.

Adada said [that] the talks hoped to agree [on] an "interim mechanism" to monitor any truce.

But with key rebel factions boycotting the negotiations, the hopes for an early ceasefire agreed in Sirte were dashed. They set difficult conditions for attendance and asked for more time to unite their ranks. A key rebel leader has also said [that] he would not take part in talks until the U.N. was in Darfur to provide security.

"This is part of their conditions to establish UNAMID, and we are establishing UNAMID now," Adada said.

While the joint U.N.-AU mediations has refused to adjourn the talks, despite the non-attendance of rebels, they will send a team to meet the hold-out groups to bring them to the table.

International experts estimate [that] some 200,000 people have died in 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur since mostly non-Arabs took up arm in early 2003, accusing central government of neglect.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for a cabinet minister and [a] militia leader, both accused of colluding in war crimes.

The United Nations-African Union hybrid peacekeeping operation for Darfur (UNAMID) today [Wednesday] began operations at its El Fasher Headquarters, in what the senior UN official there called a milestone for the strife-torn Sudanese region.

“It is a great day for the United Nations and the African Union, the day of UNAMID's launch, which was only an idea, three months ago, but now it is a profound reality,” said Rodolphe Adada, the UN-AU Joint Special Representative for Darfur.

“I am pleased to say that with the cooperation of the Government of Sudan, we are one more step closer to embark on our peacekeeping mandate for the people of Darfur,” he declared.

But Mr. Adada cautioned that more support is needed, saying [that] UNAMID is “facing a lack of pledges for specialized units in areas such as aviation and land transport that should be arriving in Darfur as part of the heavy support package” to the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which has been on the ground in Darfur since 2004.

The UN and [the] AU are currently conducting pre-deployment visits to some of the troop-contributing countries [in order] to inspect the uniformed personnel and their equipment, according to the envoy.

“I have all the confidence that the remaining steps towards the final assumption of authority by UNAMID will be concluded before the end of this year, so that we can start implementing our mandate in 2008 in full gear,” he said.

Conflict in Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and [has] uprooted another 2.5 million. UN-AU-mediated talks are currently underway in Sirte, Libya, aimed at achieving a lasting political solution to the fighting, which began in 2003 and involves rebels, Government forces, and allied militia known as the Janjaweed.

In a worrying sign of further turmoil, Sudan's government is increasing the pressure on Darfur civilians to leave many refugee camps where they had fled to avoid violence. The United Nations says [that] the government has even loaded some refugees by force onto trucks in recent days, [in order] to drag them out.

Sudanese officials insist [that] they are forcing no one to leave, but do want to encourage refugees to return to their villages, because the camps have become too big, squalid, and dangerous. The camps also make refugees unhealthily dependent on humanitarian aid, the officials say.

But this week, U.N. officials said [that] they had evidence that Sudanese government forces were chasing the refugees out of at least one camp, Otash, home to 60,000 people on the outskirts of south Darfur's capital, Nyala.

"Given that security forces were threatening the displaced with sticks and rubber hoses at Otash camp, the involuntary nature of this relocation is clear," the U.N.'s humanitarian chief, [Sir] John Holmes, said in a statement earlier this week.

He said [that] such a practice was against U.N. agreements with Sudan.

Ten armed pickup trucks rounded up the refugees, Holmes said. U.N. and aid workers were initially barred from the camp, he said, but eventually got in to see eight large commercial trucks being loaded with the belongings of women and children.

Most Darfur refugees say [that] they agree [that] the camps are bad, but say [that] they have nowhere else to go — because their home villages still are too dangerous, as Darfur's war between rebels and the government drags on.

"Do you think [that] we like living here? Do you think [that] we have a choice?" one refugee woman at Otash, Husseina Mukhtar, said a few weeks ago — at a time when government pressure to leave was already intense. As she spoke, the stench of overflowing latrines floated around the squalid camp.

It is unclear how widespread the government's practice is, but Sudanese officials have been pushing for all camps to close in Darfur, including those in the north and [the] west.

"We've monitored about 20,000 returns, but we can't say how many there are really," said Darfur coordinator Gerard Waite in late September, citing lack of access to camps because security is so poor.

He said [that] more refugees could have left without being monitored, but that the overall camp population remained about stable, because of 170,000 new arrivals this year.

Violence erupted in Darfur in western Sudan in 2003, when rebels from Darfur's ethnic-African majority took up arms against the Arab-dominated government.

Critics accuse Sudan of retaliating by arming local Arab militias known as the janjaweed, and the government is blamed for widespread atrocities against civilians. The government denies any guilt, but a cabinet minister and a janjaweed chief have been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

More than 200,000 people have been killed in the violence, and an estimated 2.5 million civilians have fled to refugee camps in Darfur and neighboring countries. Most of Darfur's camps, housing 2.2 million people, lie close to government-controlled towns, but are teeming with rebels.

The government staunchly contends [that] it is forcing no refugees to go home.

About 209,000 refugees have already headed home in south Darfur alone, said Jamal Youssef, the secretary general of the Humanitarian Affairs Commission, a powerful Sudanese-government body that controls all humanitarian access to the camps.

"The returns began as early as 2004. We don't make anybody go back by force," Youssef said in an interview.

But some human-rights groups contend [that] the government is racing to empty camps before January, when a joint U.N. and African Union force of 26,000 peacekeepers is to deploy in Darfur, replacing the current overwhelmed AU force.

"The camps are evidence against our government, so they want this evidence to vanish before everyone can see it," said Mohamed Ali, a lawyer with the Amel center, a Sudanese rights group, which provides legal support to refugees around Nyala.

He and others cite examples of government pressure to leave the camps, including another camp called Kalma. In particular, violence and harassment by government forces have surged, Ali said. He listed 47 arbitrary arrests of community refugee leaders in Kalma camp since August, and nine recent rapes of refugee women.

Several U.N. and humanitarian workers around Nyala confirmed these trends, but asked not to be named, for fear of government retaliation. Aid workers have increasingly been targeted by violence, and the camps are now often off-limits to them.

Refugees depend entirely on humanitarian aid, and many refugees said [that] the pressure on aid workers was another way to make camp life unsustainable.

Some refugee leaders believe [that] Sudan is pushing to empty the camps in anticipation of a national census due early next year, to prepare for general legislative and presidential elections in early 2009. If the elections take place, they will be the first under President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in a military and Islamist coup in 1989.

The refugees are much more easily countable while in camps than back in their remote villages. Some believe [that] the push to empty camps is part of a plan to make sure [that] fewer refugees are counted and [that] the regime wins the election.

"Imagine how we'll vote," said Sheik Abdallah Yacoub, a refugee leader from Otash. "They want us to disappear."

The government of Sudan’s recent forced relocation of civilians in South Darfur is a serious violation of international law, and could be the prelude to new attempts to dismantle certain civilian camps, Human Rights Watch warned today [Wednesday]. Sudan’s government should cease the relocation operation, immediately confirm the whereabouts and well-being of those who have been moved, and allow the African Union Mission in Sudan, the United Nations Mission in Sudan, and humanitarian agencies access to all displaced persons, whether they reside in camps or other locations in Darfur.

Between October 25 and 30, Sudanese police and military forces entered at least two locations near Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and forced hundreds of civilians, mainly women and children, into trucks at gunpoint. At least 400 families were moved from the two sites, all of them new arrivals who had fled Kalma camp following violence the previous week.

“The Sudanese government has repeatedly tried to dismantle Kalma camp and relocate its residents by force to unsafe areas, without any security guarantees or humanitarian aid,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “International policymakers should vigorously condemn this incident and make clear to Khartoum that any relocation must be underpinned by international law and fundamental human-rights guarantees.”

On October 25, Sudanese armed forces and armed police moved at least 300 families from the village of Mayok, between Kalma camp and Nyala town. On the evening of October 27, they entered Otash camp, on the outskirts of Nyala town, and forced 400 people from the camp into trucks. At least 36 people reportedly were arrested, and an unknown number of others were injured, during the operation. On October 28, the UN and humanitarian staff tried to visit Otash, but were refused access by Sudanese security forces. The police were reported to be clearing the shelters and possessions that the displaced people had left behind.

In June 2007, Sudanese officials proposed six resettlement locations for displaced persons from Kalma, but they were rejected by the population as not secure, due to the presence of militia or military. In recent weeks, authorities again pressed people to move, before the latest round of violence in Kalma on October 18-20 left at least three civilians dead, and forced these families to flee. A number of families had reconfirmed in recent days that they did not wish to move to the proposed sites.

“While there are clearly problems with security in Kalma camp, many people feel safer there than in rural areas, where they are extremely vulnerable to ongoing attacks and have no access to humanitarian assistance,” said Takirambudde. “Rather than trying to dismantle the camps and forcibly relocate people, the government should cooperate with the African Union and [the] UN [in order] to improve security in the camps.”

The recent events are the latest in a long history of Sudanese-government attempts to close Kalma camp, home to at least 90,000 people and one of the largest camps for displaced persons in Darfur. Most of the displaced people in the camps were victims of government and “Janjaweed” militia attacks, and have no confidence in Sudanese government efforts to provide security. Many of the displaced people see the relocation efforts as an attempt to exert further control over their movements and [to] cut off their access to Nyala town and to international aid workers.

In November 2004, there was international outcry when the government made its first attempt to forcibly relocate residents of Kalma to camps in Nyala town. Throughout 2005, the authorities maintained pressure [both on] the displaced people and on the humanitarian community to relocate people to an alternative site, Al-Salam. When the population refused in May 2005, the government imposed a ban on commercial activity in Kalma (including prohibiting the market and supplies of goods from Nyala town) to be lifted only if the humanitarian community began relocating people to Al-Salam. For much of 2007, the government has been again pressing displaced people to relocate from Kalma.

International humanitarian law prohibits the displacement of the civilian population, unless it is strictly for the purpose of civilian security or for reasons of military imperative. Despite government claims, it is not clear that either reason was applicable to the displacement of the population in Kalma. Governments may also seek to relocate a displaced population for the protection of public health, but again, despite government claims, there were no apparent compelling public-health reasons for the relocation.

The manner in which the government carried out the forced relocations also breached their obligations to the civilian population under international law. Under international standards, any relocation of displaced persons should be voluntary, and carried out in full consultation with the displaced. Displacement must not be carried out in a manner that violates the rights to life, dignity, liberty, and security of those affected, and they must not be forcibly resettled in any place where their life, safety, liberty, and/or health would be at risk. International humanitarian organizations should be given rapid and unimpeded access to internally displaced persons [in order] to assist in their resettlement.

Despite the fact that UN Emergency Relief Coordinator [Sir] John Holmes made a public statement confirming events, Sudan’s UN envoy, Abdelmahmood Abdelhaleem Mohamed, told reporters that the UN’s accounts of the events in Otash were “irrelevant, unfortunate, and unconfirmed.”

“Sudanese officials must end their policy of denying the reality on the ground in Darfur, and start trying to rebuild the confidence of their citizens,” said Takirambudde. “The first step would be to acknowledge their own responsibility for serious crimes and [to] take serious steps to end abuses, including by cooperating with, not obstructing, the African Union and [the] UN.”

The Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has accused Gordon Brown of deliberately undermining the Darfur peace talks, and demanded a public apology, after the prime minister threatened new sanctions against Sudan, if the talks failed.

Mr Brown's remarks amounted to direct encouragement for Darfur's rebels to continue fighting and to boycott the negotiations that started in Libya at the weekend, Mr Bashir told the Guardian.

"We read it as encouraging these people, the movements, 'Make these talks fail, so that we will be able to punish the government of Sudan,'" he said.

The Sudanese government sent a large delegation to the talks, and announced a unilateral ceasefire on the opening day.

But Darfur's main armed groups have refused to attend the talks, which were meant to end five years of war that have left 2 million people homeless and caused up to 200,000 deaths.

Mediators from the United Nations and the African Union plan to meet the various rebel leaders in their exile headquarters outside Sudan, as well as in Darfur. They hope to prevent the talks from collapsing, as an earlier effort did last year.

In an exclusive interview in the presidential residence, the first [that] he has given any western reporter this year [sic], Mr Bashir made it clear where he thought blame for failure would lie. [Updated, on Thursday, to note that I had forgotten about, at the very least, this year's earlier interview with NBC's Ann Curry. - EJM] "It will be the responsibility of the external interventions, particularly from Britain, France, and the United States," he said.

His anger was prompted by comments that Mr Brown made to reporters in Britain on Sunday, the day after the peace talks started in Colonel Muammar Gadafy's home town of Sirte. The Libyan leader is hosting the talks, but has no role as a mediator.

"This is a critical and decisive moment for Darfur," Mr Brown said. Although he praised Sudan for announcing a ceasefire, and called on all parties to join it, he singled out the government of Sudan for possible punishment. "Of course, if parties do not come to the ceasefire, there's a possibility [that] we will impose further sanctions on the government," he said.

Michael O'Neill, Britain's special envoy on Sudan, read out an amended statement in the prime minister's name in Sirte later the same day. "We stand ready to take tough action with our partners against any party that obstructs progress including new sanctions," it said.

But Mr Bashir has chosen to treat Mr Brown's choice of words as deliberate. The Sudanese foreign ministry summoned Rosalind Marsden, the British ambassador to Khartoum, to protest.

Mr Bashir went further, by demanding a public apology. He shook his head vigorously when it was put to him that there might have been a misunderstanding.

"We very well read and understand English," he replied. "There was no misunderstanding at all. The statement was very clear."

The president listened to the questions without having them translated into Arabic, but answered through an interpreter.

He said [that] the Darfur issue would have been solved by now, if there had not been a constant pattern of external intervention, stretching back to long before Mr Brown's weekend statement.

"What we suffer here, and in Darfur in particular, and the problems in Sudan in general, are caused by these three powers, Britain, France, and the United States," he said. The three countries continually adopted resolutions at the UN to punish Sudan, he added.

Sudan has come under fire from the three countries in the UN [Security Council] for being primarily responsible for the activities of government forces and janjaweed militia in burning villages, raping women, and driving hundreds of thousands of people into camps for the displaced in 2003 and 2004.

They also accuse it of creating obstacles for the new UN/AU peace force, and for UN aid agencies and other humanitarian workers, as well as rejecting demands to punish officials suspected of crimes against humanity, or to hand them to the [International Criminal Court].

The UN has imposed some sanctions, while the US enforces its own, tougher ones.

But Mr Bashir insisted [that] the roots of the problem in Darfur lay in desertification, which left nomads and farmers struggling over diminishing natural resources.

There was also banditry. People took up arms for various reasons, including tribal disputes. But external intervention "sharpened the appetite of some of the commanders and leaders to look for positions and get part of this cake," he said.

A peacekeeping force run by the AU and the UN is due to start operating in Darfur in January. Western governments have been pressing for its 26,000 troops and police to include some non-African contingents, partly to ensure [that] it is more robust than the smaller, all-African force now deployed in Darfur. Thailand has offered 800 troops. Nepal is also offering some.

Mr Bashir told the Guardian [that] this was unnecessary. "What is required in Darfur now is eight battalions. The contribution submitted so far by African countries is sixteen battalions ... So Africa is producing 200% of our requirements ... We will never accept any forces from outside Africa, until we are convinced that Africa has failed to contribute the required forces," he declared.

A Downing Street spokesman said [that] Mark Malloch Brown, the minister for Africa, had telephoned Nafi Ali Nafi, the chief Sudanese negotiator in Libya, on Sunday [in order] to explain that the prime minister had meant to say [that] sanctions might be imposed on the Darfurian rebels, as well as on the government.

"The prime minister's written statement is on the website," the spokesman said. "It covers any omission in his earlier oral statement. We've accepted [that] there was an omission. We're aware [that] it's caused some offence."

Counting rebels has been the preoccupation of observers at the Darfur peace talks that got off to a faltering start in Libya last weekend: who has turned up, how many troops do they command, and how much popular support do they have?

Boycotts threatened to scupper the process before it had begun, but it is clear that, even if all the rebels had come, their disparate diagnoses of Darfur’s problems would make it hard to find common demands to put to Sudan’s government.

The rebel groups have splintered numerous times in the past year – some consist simply of a commander, a satellite phone, and a few armed men in a pick-up truck – and estimates of their number at the weekend ranged from 12 to 28.

All of them want a ceasefire and government help to resettle the 2.5 [million] people forced from their homes by air attacks, state-sponsored militia raids, or inter-rebel and inter-tribal fighting.

“The problem of security is ultimately caused by the government,” says Ahmed Diraige, of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance. “People must get compensation for the property [that] they have lost, and they must be fed. They have nothing.”

Beyond that, rebels divide into three categories that are defined by contrasting views on how to end Darfur’s marginalisation, the underlying cause of an insurgency that began in 2003.

Those in the first category look at Darfur and its problems in isolation. They want Sudan’s wealth to be shared equitably with the region, and they want representation in the national parliament that is proportionate to its population of roughly 6 [million].

“The people of Darfur feel [that] their share of education and health services is less than [others']. There have been no development projects in Darfur, and there is no participation in decision-making,” says Mr Diraige.

Rebels in the second category have national visions, and say [that] Darfur’s problems can only be solved through an overhaul of the whole country’s politics: the region is only one of several that have suffered from a concentration of power and wealth in Khartoum.

One of the two most-important rebels boycotting the talks is Khalil Ibrahim, who leads a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), and has called for a radical restructuring of national government. The other is Abdul Wahid al-Nour, leader of a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, who has said [that] his goal was to transform Sudan from an Islamist-dominated state into a secular democracy.

The emergence of a national force of the politically downtrodden is a loathsome prospect for the Khartoum regime, because, with elections due in 2009, it could threaten its survival.

Equally intolerable, however, is the solution raised by the third category of Darfur rebels – secession. “The government tries to convince us it is a conflict over resources, but we have resources sufficient for 300 [million] people,” says a member of a Jem faction that split from Mr Ibrahim. “The right to self-determination is the final solution.”

On 27 September, the Sudanese authorities forcibly returned 15 recognised refugees to Ethiopia. They were handed into the custody of Ethiopian security personal at the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Their current whereabouts in Ethiopia [are] unknown, and Amnesty International believes [that] they are now at risk of enforced disappearance, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, torture, and unfair trials.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on 11 October that the 15 had been part of a group of more than 30 Ethiopian refugees arrested in early July 2007 by Sudanese intelligence officers in Khartoum and Blue Nile state.

Among the 15 was Atanaw Wasie, who has chronic asthma for which he needs medical treatment. He was a leader of the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU) political party, which opposed the Dergue government that was overthrown in 1991, but is no longer active. He was arrested on 7July 2007 in the eastern town of Gedaref and [was] held incommunicado. His whereabouts in Ethiopia are unknown.

Others who were returned and detained are reported to be alleged members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which is fighting the Ethiopian security forces in the Oromia Region. Several-thousand members of the Oromo ethnic group have been arbitrarily detained and tortured in Ethiopia in recent years.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Hundreds of Ethiopian and Eritrean nationals were arrested in Sudan in early July 2007. Many of those detained were asylum-seekers or recognized refugees. The recent detentions of Ethiopians came immediately after the Ethiopian foreign minister visited Sudan in June 2007. Many of the detainees have been living in Sudan as refugees since the late 1970s, and others are opponents of the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, who have been arriving in Sudan since the 1990s to seek asylum.

Ethiopia is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, and the Organization of African Unity (OAU – now the African Union) Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, all of which oblige the authorities not to forcibly return any person to a country where they risk torture or other serious human-rights violations.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English or your own language:

expressing concern for the safety of 15 Ethiopian refugees, including Atanaw Wasie, who were forcibly returned to Ethiopia on 27 September, in violation of international refugee-protection law, and detained on arrival at the Ethiopian border;

urging the Ethiopian authorities to immediately disclose their whereabouts and legal status;

if the 15 are still being detained, calling for the Ethiopian government to explain the grounds for their detention[, to and] ensure that they are not subjected to torture or ill-treatment[,] and are given immediate access to lawyers and relatives, and [to] all necessary medical treatment – particularly for Atanaw Wasie;

[if] they are in detention, calling for the Ethiopian Government to bring them promptly before a court and ensure [that] they [either are] released or receive a prompt and fair trial in accordance with recognized international fair trial standards.

The Save Darfur Coalition today [Tuesday] praised the unanimous passage of three Darfur-related resolutions in the House of Representatives, including a measure urging more efforts to prevent violence against Darfuri women, including rape and sexual assault. The other two resolutions condemned last month's [September's] attack on African Union peacekeepers, and recognized the efforts of Darfur advocates around the world to raise awareness and spur action to end the suffering in Darfur. All three measures passed unanimously.

"The House of Representatives has spoken loud and clear in condemning the brutal violence against Darfuri women and last month's fatal attacks on African Union peacekeepers," said coalition spokesman Allyn Brooks-LaSure. "The Congress has been at the forefront of raising awareness and pushing key policies to improve the lives of the Darfuri people."

The measure sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), H. Res 740, condemned the September attacks on African Union peacekeepers posted at Haskanita, Darfur. Rep. Jackson-Lee, along with 56 cosponsors, used the resolution [not only to] condemn the attacks and express condolences to the government of Nigeria for the loss of troops, but also [to express] support for any and all efforts of justice and accountability regarding this attack.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) sponsored H. Res. 726, calling on President Bush and world leaders to "take immediate steps to respond to and prevents acts of rape and sexual violence against women and girls in Darfur." The resolution also urged the Bush administration to establish within the State Department and [the] Agency for International Development a Women and Girls of Darfur Initiative, aiming to increase assistance to female victims, and potential victims, [of] gender-based violence.

Also approved on Monday was a resolution offered by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), H. Res. 573, recognizing the role [that] the Darfur advocacy community has played in elevating the awareness and sense of urgency surrounding the Darfur genocide. Most importantly, the resolution implores the U.S. government to work alongside the international community in urging multilateral measures against all actors [that] obstruct the pursuit of a lasting peace and security in Darfur.

As if the people of Darfur needed further confirmation of the inefficacy of the international community, the peace talks in Sirte, Libya, are set to provide it. Turned out in a show of strength, diplomats mill around Gadaafi’s grand table, trying hard to give the impression that something meaningful is going on. Gadaafi, in turn, berates the West for meddling in the crisis, which he argues does not constitute a threat to international security, preferring instead to label it a “tribal conflict”.

This carnival of stupidity and self-interest could almost be comical, if it weren’t for the fact that the people of Darfur are suffering immensely. It might even be understandable, if the international community hadn’t been warned repeatedly about the likely repercussions of staging the talks in Libya. Yet here we are, a few months further on, with little if any tangible progress. Far from any noticeable improvement in anticipation of the peace talks, violence is in fact spiraling. The Sudanese government - well versed in the discourse of international community inaction – now has the audacity to talk about exporting its ethics and morals elsewhere. Rightly unconcerned about the threat of sanctions, it goes about its daily business of murder, rape, and pillage with an air of nonchalance and impunity, while making a mockery of the very peace process in which it claims to participate.

As the peace talks lumber along from one crisis to another, the security demanded by non-participant rebel groups continues to deteriorate. In the last few days, even in the shadow of the peace process, a government campaign to “resettle” the internally displaced has proceeded apace in Otash camp near Nyala, aided by the government soldiers, its trusty sidekicks the Janjawiid, and the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). This resettlement program has nothing of the feel of welfare to it; instead resettlement occurs in an involuntary manner while looking up the barrel of a gun. In Jebel Moon, aerial bombardment also continued over the weekend, to be met only by superficial denials by government ministers. Is the irony of this situation not apparent to those engaged in peace talks, or is the Government of Sudan’s participation in the “war on terror” intelligence too important to earn them anything more than a perfunctory slap on the wrist?

If the international community spent even a faction of the time [that] it wastes on this sideshow trying to put together a realistic peace process, we may just see some progress. If it spent a little less time on labeling rebel groups “recalcitrant”, and instead thought about their reasons for non-participation, we might be further along. If it put together a realistic pre-negotiations training program that supported SPLM efforts in the South, there may be a peace process to build on. But no, it is much easier to convey an impression of doing something, rather than engaging in the hard work of actually doing something.

With the fiasco of Libya clear for the whole world to see, the international community must now redouble its efforts to create a credible dynamic towards peace. If they are serious, this must mean that the talks are moved away from Libya – one of the perpetrators of this crisis – and re-situated in an African location such as Abuja. It should resist the temptation to stage the talks outside of the continent, since this will only give fuel to the Government of Sudan to allege colonial interference. Going back to the site of the original talks, or to another African host nation, will provide a solid base from which to try to reach common ground. It will also solidify the relationship between Africa and the UN, as a precursor to a peace-keeping force.

At the present time, the international community is on a road to nowhere, where Darfur is concerned: a road that they themselves have built. If the current trend of diplomacy without substance is to be averted, this can only happen if grounded, substantive action is taken. For those now in Libya, this means a little less bullying and rhetoric, and a little more attention to crafting a framework onto which peace might eventually be built.

Dr. Anne Bartlett is a Director of the Darfur Centre for Human Rights and Development. She is also [an] Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. She may be reached at dcfhr@dcfhr.org.

Events are unfolding in the Horn Africa region in which Kenya should have an abiding interest, but it would seem [that] matters so crucial to our foreign policy and security are playing second fiddle to the current preoccupation with electioneering.

In neighbouring Somalia, a rift between President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi this week forced the resignation of the latter, threatening the stability of a government already struggling for survival against widespread insurgency.

In Sudan, earlier, the southern representatives to the national government in Khartoum were pulled out in a dramatic escalation of tensions that threatened the fragile peace agreement which ended decades of civil war.

Kenya was conspicuously silent when those developments were taking place. This is strange, considering the central role played by the country in brokering both the Sudan peace agreement [i.e., the CPA] and also the talks that established the interim government in Somalia.

Both Sudan and Somalia remain essential planks of our foreign policy, and are also of great strategic, security, and commercial interest.

South Sudan, for instance, is an exciting new frontier for Kenya's trade and industry. This country also happens to be fast developing as the natural gateway to a region blessed with vast potential. There is no telling what harm a resurgence of hostilities between north and south would do to our interests.

In Somalia, Kenya played a key role in helping establish the interim government. It also quietly supported the Ethiopian military offensive that checked the advance of the radical Islamists, seen as surrogates for international terrorist groups.

Thus, Kenya cannot afford to sit back and watch with disinterest internal feuds that weaken the Somali government, for the alternative may be a comeback of the radicals.

A hostile administration in Somalia with links to global terrorism is something [that] Kenya should not countenance, for such a regimen would pose a direct and very real threat to our national security.

Simon Roughneen writes in with an alarming report on last Saturday's peace conference on Darfur:

On Monday, United Nations (U.N.) and African Union (A.U.) mediators tried to put a positive spin on the failure of the latest Darfur peace talks in Sirte, Libya, after various splinter movements were the only groups to show up to negotiate with a Sudanese government that has collapsed. Crucially, Darfur's major rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), were absent.

The meeting's host, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, said that the world should cut Khartoum some slack over international peacekeepers, since Darfur is nothing more than a tribal "fight over a camel." This suits the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir just fine, as it implies that the proposed 26,000 UN/AU force will achieve nothing.

Sudan's government, meanwhile, is in limbo. On October 11, the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), the southern-based former rebels headed by Sudan's First Vice-President Salva Kiir, abruptly left the Sudanese government, accusing Bashir's party of backsliding on the landmark 2005 power-sharing agreement that ended the 22-year civil war between the mostly Muslim North and the predominantly Christian South. Under the agreement, South Sudan will vote on secession in 2011. The SPLA/M’s withdrawal makes such an outcome more likely.

Before that happens, though, the North-South border must be delineated, a delicate task given that much of Sudan's oil sits right in the middle in a disputed area called Abyei. Bashir recently rejected the official Abyei Boundary-Commission finding that placed much of Abyei's oil in South Sudan. Abyei will itself vote on whether it wants to be part of the North or [the] South in 2011. If it goes South, and the South then secedes, the oil goes too. Complicating matters further, oil-rich areas along the proposed border stretch well into Darfur.

Yet oil is hardly the sole factor linking Darfur and the South; power politics are at play here, too. As part of the 2005 peace deal, Sudan is slated to hold national elections in 2009, two years before the South's secession referendum. In a fair contest, Bashir and the NCP would surely lose power in Khartoum. Many northerners resent the South's potential secession almost as much as they do the NCP's long monopoly on power and patronage. In elections, the SPLA/M will likely win big in the South, making secession more likely. But elections will be difficult to run amid fighting in Darfur and along the North-South border, so the NCP is surely stalling peace now [in order] to forestall bigger losses later on.

But the NCP's enemies are not standing idly by. As they did in 2003, Muslim rebels from Darfur are linking up with the largely Christian South Sudanese against the Islamist Arab generals dominant in Khartoum since 1989. Just last Tuesday, JEM militants kidnapped two foreign workers during an attack on a Chinese-run oil concession in Kordofan province—which borders Darfur and Abyei—in an effort to take the fight outside Darfur, and into a zone where the NCP-led Army repeatedly clashed with the SPLA/M before the 2005 peace deal. It is significant that while peace talks were going nowhere in Sirte, JEM leaders met SPLA/M officials in Juba, South Sudan's would-be capital, and issued a joint statement supporting the SPLA/M withdrawal from government.

NCP and SPLA/M troops are cheek-by-jowl in Abyei and other oil-laden border areas. With the NCP defiant over SPLA/M allegations that it is stalling implementation of the 2005 deal, and [with] no sign of progress on divisive issues, the bases seem loaded for a return to war across Sudan. Sadly, it may be just a question of time.

Simon Roughneen's reports on Sudan and elsewhere been published by ISN Security Watch and in various Irish and British newspapers. He has also been to Sudan as Advocacy Officer with GOAL, and will have two chapters on politics and security in Sudan published in Beyond Settlement (Associated University Press, 2007).